WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Environmentalists today called on the eight Arctic nations of the Arctic
Council to enact a ten-year moratorium on any increase in Arctic
shipping to protect endangered beluga whales from the threat of growing
ship traffic in their habitat. The moratorium will enable nations to
finalize and implement the “Polar Code,” an agreement currently being
negotiated under the auspices of the International Maritime Organization
(IMO), that aims to establish environmental, safety, and shipping
controls, in order to constrain industrial accidents and ecosystem
impacts in the Arctic.

The report’s publication coincides with the opening today of the
semi-annual meeting of the Arctic Council in Yellowknife, Canada whose
members include the United States, Canada, Greenland-Denmark, Russia,
Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Iceland. Senior Arctic Council officials
meeting this week will consider the impacts of climate change and
expanding industrial exploitation on the fragile Arctic ecosystem, its
biodiversity, and the communities on the front line of rising global
temperatures.

The EIA report reveals that belugas are the most widely exploited whale
species in the world today. Of the 29 populations of beluga whales, 15
are already depleted, and ten populations continue to be overhunted,
including five depleted populations. Only six subpopulations are
considered to have stable or increasing populations.

“Cargo shipping, oil and gas operations, and rapidly melting sea ice all
pose serious new threats to the survival of beluga whales, of which many
populations are already endangered,” said Danielle Fest Grabiel, a
Senior Policy Analyst at EIA. “Few, if any, concrete actions have been
taken by Arctic nations to ensure that belugas will receive enhanced
protection measures before additional industrial development proceeds.”

As the Arctic warms at nearly twice the rate of the rest of the globe
and the opportunity for development increases, EIA also endorses a ban
on new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic as championed by Greenpeace
and other groups. Currently, oil and gas exploration and extraction
activities pose an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of the
Arctic ecosystem, including both human communities and wildlife, such as
beluga whales.

“Development in the fragile and hostile Arctic environment presents
unprecedented environmental and safety hazards, which the international
community is not yet prepared to deal with. We are gambling with the
future of a species that is already endangered and simply cannot sustain
any more losses,” Grabiel said.